With Knights of Columbus Funding and Strong Connections to Well-Heeled Right-Wing Catholic Elite Groups, Crux Promises No Good New for LGBTQ Catholics

Last week, I commented on a recent statement by Kaya Oakes at Religion Dispatches raising critical questions about the choice of John Allen to fund his Catholic news journal Crux with Knights of Columbus funds, now that Boston Globe has announced it will no longer fund Crux. As I noted, Kaya Oakes points out that the Knights of Columbus have established quite a reputation for themselves by sending over a million dollars to California to help snatch the right of marriage from gay citizens of that state with proposition 8, and by making million-dollar-plus contributions to campaigns in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington to combat gay rights. 

Bob Cesca on Fox News's Defense of Duggars as "Harrowing Turning Point in Our Discourse" — and Father Jonathan Morris's at Fox News's Defense of Duggars

Yesterday, I pointed you to a thought-provoking article by Andrew O'Hehir which argues that it's through public conversation about stories like those of the Duggars and Caitlyn Jenner that Americans now carry on political debate about the role of religion in American life and how sexual abuse is often tolerated, minimized, covered up within families. O'Hehir thinks that if we pooh-pooh these conversations as low-culture events beneath the notice of serious people, as the beltway media and many centrist journals pretend to do, we remove ourselves from "the substance of our national conversation, the central narrative of American political and cultural life in our time."

Irish Television Documentary on Maciel and Legion of Christ, and the Francis Effect: What Difference Is Francis Really Making?

John XXIII knew.

Taking A Close Look at the "Church Teaching" That Vatican Media Apologists Claim U.N. Attacks: There's Their World, and Then There's the Real World

For Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), David Clohessy responds to Austen Ivereigh's claim that the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child "ambushed" the Vatican with its recent report: 

National Catholic Reporter Calls for Criminal Investigation of Legion of Christ--"An Agency of Almost Unimaginable Fraud"

National Catholic Reporter's editorial calling for criminal investigation of the Legion of Christ minces no words. An editorial beginning with the following opening sentence is whatever the opposite of word-mincing might be called:

Date Set for Canonizing John Paul II: We Are Church Responds

Pope John Paul II and Father Marcial Maciel

Pope Francis announced yesterday that he Popes John XXIII and John Paul II will be canonized at the same time on 27 April 2014. We Are Church responds:

Matthew Fox, Letters to Pope Francis: On the "New" Evangelization

More excerpts from Matthew Fox's book Letters to Pope Francis: in an important letter in the book, Fox discusses the "new" evangelization that was so strongly promoted by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and encourages Francis to look closely at what the term "evangelize" actually means, as he himself promotes the church's mission of proclaiming the good news of the gospel to the world: 

Eugene Kennedy on John Paul II's Beatification: The Saint Who Kept Looking Away (A Re-Posting)

I published this piece back in January 2011. With the announcement this past week by Pope Francis that he is moving the canonization of John Paul II forward, Eugene Kennedy's fine statement is on my mind again, and I want to share this item again. Here's what I wrote in 2011:

Eugene Kennedy's reading at National Catholic Reporter this week of what the beatification of John Paul II will signify for many Catholics is thought-provoking.  And, as with everything Kennedy writes, masterfully written.

Revelations from Legionaries of Christ Documents in Rhode Island Trial: Implications for Upcoming Papal Election

John Paul II and Father Marcial Maciel

Yesterday, I wrote,

Archbishop Georg Gänswein and Benedict's Fixation on Rehabilitating SSPX, Benedict and Immunity from International Prosecution: What's Going on in the Vatican?!

Follow the Money

To be frank, I am not particularly interested in Vatican chit-chat. It seems far removed from my tiny little life in the miasmatic swamps of Arkansas. And I wonder how anyone can truly know what goes on in the inaccessible miasmatic swamps inside the Vatican. Anyone other than insiders, that is, and everyone who works inside the Vatican takes an oath, as I understand, not to see, hear, or tell.

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "Running the Slur Piece" about Fox News Priest "Beneath Contempt"

National Catholic Reporter does take heat from some Catholics for circulating fact-based stories about how some American Catholics deal with their gay brothers and sisters.  Yesterday, when Dennis Coday linked to a NewsHounds article about Father Jonathan Morris of Fox News in his "Morning Briefing" column, several readers of Coday's column vehemently objected.  

Gerald T. Slevin: Is Pope Leading a New "Children's Crusade" to Help Romney Win?

Another outstanding piece this morning by Jerry Slevin.  In this essay, Jerry sketches the historical and political background to the intervention of the Vatican and the U.S. Catholic hierarchy in the 2012 elections, noting the connection of papal politics (and the politicking of the USCCB) to the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church.  Jerry's essay follows:

More End-of-Week News: Maciel and John Paul II, Bayard Rustin, and Crisis of Democracy

I apologize that I'm a bit pressed for blogging time today, as I prepare for a day trip to chase down some information for the book on which I've been working--specifically, to see if some distant cousins who grew up with close connections to the book's subject, the 19th-century Arkansas country doctor-cum-philosopher Wilson R. Bachelor, can help identify some old family pictures.  Since I'm preparing to be on the run, I thought I'd post briefly about several articles that interested me when I read them yesterday.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? The Vatican's Current Turmoil

In Der Spiegel, Fiona Ehlers, Alexander Smoltczyk, and Peter Wensierski chronicle the astonishing turmoil now taking place inside the inner power circles of the Vatican, where a deep-throat source yet to be identified and calling itself "Maria" keeps spilling bean after bean about what's going on inside:

More on Father Williams and Damage to Legionaries of Christ Credibility, and Bishops and Contraception

Two articles today that continue stories about which I've blogged of late:

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: "A Prophetic Voice Is Needed to Shake People out of Their Moral Lethargy"

Eerie, isn't it, to re-read Legionary of Christ and teacher of moral theology, Father Thomas Williams now, in retrospect, on issues like scandal and shaking folks out of their moral lethargy--now after we know what we know was going on in his own life (and which his superiors knew) even as he uttered these words:*

SNAP Responds to Story of Legionary of Christ Priest Thomas Williams

Barbara Blaine of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests has released a press statement about the story of Legionary of Christ priest Thomas Williams about which I blogged yesterday.  As she notes, Phillip Pullella of Reuters is now reporting that top Vatican officials and top Legionary of Christ officials have known about Thomas Williams's reported transgressions for quite some time now, but have kept silent about them.  

The Catholic Let's-Pretend Game and Legionary of Christ Priest Thomas Williams

About the let's-pretend game-playing that seems to be working with ever diminishing effectiveness for the Catholic magisterium and those who defend it (I have been talking about that a bit today, haven't I?): 

Chaput Cleaned up the Legionaries, but He Didn't Clean Them up? Please Explain.

Maybe someone can 'splain this to me like I'm a two-year old:

Cardinal Angelo Sodano on John Paul Beatification: Shut Up about the "Peripheral Issues" of the Abuse Crisis

Here's another indicator (to me) that makes the upcoming beatification of John Paul II sickening: